Sustainability Hits Home

Keriann Pfleger ’17 studied a contaminated landfill near her high school. To represent the toxins in the ground, she created a zero-waste display, using all recycled products. Photo by Carl Socolow '77.

Students study environmental, social and economic issues in
familiar settings

by MaryAlice
Bitts-Jackson

The bus ride from Manhattanite Rehana Rohman ’17’shome to her high
school wasn’t overly unpleasant, but it was punctuated by an unforgettable
landmark—a large industrial structure that exhaled an unpalatable smell. “I
used to put my hoodie up over my nose for about a mile as we went past,” says Rohman (environmental
studies), “but I never really knew what it was, or how it affected the
health of people who live there.”

That changed this semester, when Rohman took Environmental and Social Justice, a course taught by Heather
Bedi, assistant professor of environmental studies. For their final projects, students researched an environmental
“bad” in a familiar place, and then investigated whether marginalized
communities are disproportionately affected. The students emerged with a better
understanding of how science, business, social science and social justice
interconnect in communities they already know.

While
Rohman researched the incinerator along her high-school bus route, fellow
environmental-studies major Madden Bremer ’16 of Massachusetts looked into
untreated sewage in the Merrimack River. Keriann Pfleger ’17 (biology)
studied a contaminated landfill across from her hometown high school, and Kyra Adajian ’19 delved
into brownfield sites in Bridgeport, Conn., and nearby Greenwich.

All
of these “bads,” they learned, were seated in low-income areas with
predominantly minority populations. Nearby higher-income, predominantly white
neighborhoods were not, or not equally, affected.

The
same is true of social-sustainability issues, says Kevin Rubenstein ’16 (environmental studies). While studying food deserts (areas
in which it is difficult to buy affordable fresh food) in Baltimore, where he attended
high school, Rubenstein found that access to fresh food and average life
span are disproportionately lower in lower-income, predominantly
African-American neighborhoods.

“It’s
disheartening to learn that people in food deserts in Baltimore are dying an
average of 10 years earlier, in part because of illnesses like cardiac disease
and obesity, and it’s disheartening that I went to school nearby, and I didn’t
know that one in four people in Baltimore do not have access to good, fresh
food,” said Rubenstein, who arranged to give a poster detailing his findings to
one of his former high-school teachers. The poster will be hung in a
classroom so other Baltimore students can benefit from what Rubenstein learned.

Research
like this puts a human face on business and environmental concerns, said
Madeleine Jones ’19, who investigated seismic testing off the
coast of Ocean City, Md., where her grandparents live. “When I think about
environmental issues, I tend to focus on the effects [of pollutants and global
warming] on trees and animals,” she says. “But this course really brought home
to me that if we don’t have clean air and water, we also don’t have a healthy [human]
population.”

For Anna
Murdoch ’18 (sociology), whose work focused on the
lower St. John’s River Basin (St. John’s County, Fla.), the course likewise added
new dimensions to social-justice issues. Anastasia
Khlopina ’18 (international business &
management) pointed out that sustainability and social justice are important considerations
in her field too. A Russian native, Khlopina looked at environmental waste in
Birmingham, Ala., where she studied as a high-school foreign-exchange student.

“When
I first visited Birmingham, I fell in love with the beautiful skyscrapers and
skyline,” she says. “But now I realize that what we as privileged people see
when we look at the city is very different from what people who live in the
center of the city see and experience every day. And I’m interested in learning
how corporations are able to not just make a profit, but also help improve
people’s lives.”

Daniela
Aldrich ’19, a Carlisle native, agrees. “My eyes have been opened
to so many issues in this class,” says Aldrich, who researched an incinerator
in center-city Harrisburg, Pa., and found the work so engrossing that she
enrolled in a related course, Environment and Society, for the spring. “I learned
that sustainability occurs where environmental, social and economic interests
all convene.”